Blue Witness
by blacktop
Summary: Working both sides of an international murder case, Carter and Reese test cultural expectations and the limits of their own eccentric relationship. Rated T for violence, sex, and chagrin.
1. Chapter 1

Fusco's voice was gravelly in the pre-dawn gloom of the cramped Bronx apartment.

"This how you found her?"

To Carter he sounded like he had just crawled out of an undersea cave of sleep and still resented the interruption.

The younger cop, his brow shiny with anxious sweat in the blast of Fusco's irritation, kept his eyes on his notebook, flipping its pages as he stuttered a reply.

"Yeah, wrapped up like a birthday present in that blue sheet."

Young Crawford's eagerness to share his own impressions failed to dent the senior officer's bad mood. But he plunged on anyway.

"Stretched out on the rug just as pretty as you please. All peaceful like and everything. Tall, ain't she? For a girl, I mean."

Carter overheard the details of this murder as she walked slowly around the apartment, weaving her way among the busy specialists scratching for clues in the puny wreckage of another lost life.

The space was narrow, but the corners were swept clean around the edges of the dingy parlor carpet. Every wall was painted in non-committal shades of drab peach.

But the occupant had tacked stunning cloths in bright primary stripes on all four walls of the living room. Another long swath of colorful fabric was festooned along the grimy corridor wall leading toward the rear of the apartment.

Loud reds and yellows, black, white, green. With bold fringe draping down from the ends of each textile like braided coils from a woman's head.

This one had been an optimistic decorator, Carter felt, determined to display her own tokens of pride and hope where she could treasure them every day.

Growling and aggressive, Fusco boxed the quavering landlord into a corner and extracted some bare details:

Aminata Diallo was an immigrant from West Africa who had lived in the building only ten months.

She braided hair for seven hours a day six days a week in the Nu-Wave Locateria beauty parlor a few blocks from her home. When she wasn't in night classes studying to be an interpreter, she cleaned houses to make enough off-the-books cash to pay her rent.

Aminata Diallo was twenty years old.

She lived quietly and died the same way, a deep knife gash across the throat exposing the white cartilage of her windpipe.

But whoever ended her life had wanted her to leave it with dignity.

So Aminata's long spray of micro-braids had been arranged carefully in a cascade over her right shoulder, a white ribbon gathering the strands like a sheaf of black wheat.

Her slim body had been swaddled tightly in its shroud of sky blue fabric.

The thin cloth was pulled up over her mouth and nose so that only her dark almond shaped eyes stared back at the twenty cops who bustled around the living room investigating her last minutes on earth.

Though her eyelashes were heavy and silky as a doe's, Carter noted she had only a scattering of brow hairs arranged in a sculpted arc to punctuate the smooth dome of her forehead.

"Jesus! Can't somebody put a plug in that cat howling in the kitchen?"

Fusco's voice was loud and penetrated the buzz of official activity. "It's drivin' me crazy with the racket!"

His increasing impatience with the sketchy account dragged from the landlord mirrored Carter's own snappish frustration this morning.

She bent over to touch the soft skin behind the girl's left ear; blood was still wet on the blue folds over her neck, her murderer only hours away.

Crawford, the slick faced young cop who was first on the scene, crept toward the back of the apartment to investigate the howls echoing from the kitchen.

"It ain't a cat, Detective." Crawford's skinny neck craned around the swinging door.

"It's a kid. Mewling his head off in here like there's no tomorrow."

"Well, stifle him before I come back there and put him out of his misery." Fusco barked at the swarm of technicians and cops in general, not really caring who accomplished the task.

Carter was on a short fuse too.

She and Fusco had made a good collar on a long-dormant homicide case the previous morning. Closing that frozen file, shutting down their Lieutenant's pestering jibes at last, deserved a celebration they agreed.

So the first jubilant round at Swanetta's turned into three, which probably became five by the time they quit the bar after midnight. Taylor was away on a spring break trip to Washington for the week, so she had no curfew.

This dawn's headache throbbing behind her nose was well and truly earned. Stopping the wailing in the kitchen was priority number one.

She had just stepped into the dimly lit hallway to shut down the ruckus, when a tall shadow whipped past her, pushed aside Crawford, and vanished through the kitchen door.

A navy windbreaker over broad shoulders proclaimed that the shadow belonged to an Emergency Medical Technician, but she didn't believe it for a minute.

The distinctive angle of the hair at the nape of the neck, the glint of steel at the dark temples; above all the sharp male scent invading her veins made blood rise towards her cheeks in a familiar surge of desire.

John. Was he here because of her? Following her, intercepting her case even as it unrolled?

She had not seen him in nine days or spoken to him in four.

How could he know she would be attending this forlorn death in this dismal sector of the Bronx battlefield at this hour of the morning?

She wanted to rush into the kitchen, confront him directly, at least touch his cheek for an instant.

She wanted to press him against her breasts and demand an explanation for all the missing days and the silent hours since they had last kissed.

She felt the moisture in her mouth gather in involuntary readiness for his tongue, the wetness condensing between her legs for his cock.

A bubbling resentment competed with the erotic ache low in her stomach and since she wasn't sure which emotion would commandeer her actions, she decided to stay clear of the kitchen until she cooled down.

Her colleagues were too busy with the minutiae of their work to notice her loitering in the dark hallway, unoccupied.

They swept up microscopic shards of glass, shorn nails, motes of dust, flakes of discarded skin, fibers shed from the dead girl's clothing, and with luck the damning sliver of evidence that would convict her murderer.

Crouching, crawling, they plucked and picked until they had filled a hundred plastic envelopes with the sad treasures of their hunt.

"Get in here, Carter." John's voice was low and harsh.

She sprang from the hall and into the narrow kitchen, hoping her movements would not be noticed by the other cops.

John was standing in front of a grease spattered stove, his right hand enfolded in the larger palm of a lanky young man whose deep plum skin shone in stunning contrast to the white drapes of his long shirt and baggy pants.

The man, really just a boy as Carter could now see, was at least three inches taller than John.

Though his eyes were red and streaming with tears, his mouth curved into a smile that displayed two rows of startlingly white teeth. His cheeks were as poreless as glass and his smooth shaven head was beautifully symmetrical as it rose from his long graceful neck.

"Carter, this is Abou Diallo." John raised his right hand to waist height to show her the boy's huge fist, firmly clasped around his own.

"He is Amie's brother. He's been here in New York about four months. He said when he got up this morning to fix breakfast, he found her dead in the living room, wrapped up like you saw her."

A sob shuddered through Abou's sunken chest and he turned his handsome face toward John with beseeching eyes.

"Can he talk to me? Can I take him in for questioning?" She had so many more questions, but those were the first that popped out.

"He's afraid, Carter. Afraid of the people who killed his sister. I told him you were my friend. You would take care of him."

"How do you know what he says, John?"

"They're Peuhl from Mali. So he speaks some French, I speak a little Wolof and a little Pulaar. We pieced it together."

She remembered John's stories of his work in Senegal and other countries along the edge of the Sahara, but she hadn't known that he spoke any of the languages of the region.

"How about English, can he speak English?"

Abou nodded in response, but kept his eyes on John's face.

"He can speak enough. He'll tell you what he knows. It should help catch her killers."

Carefully prying each long black finger lose from his hand, John undid their connection and let Abou's arm drop.

The boy sobbed again, but moved closer to Carter as he had been instructed to do.

"John, what are you doing here? How did you know about this? The call went out less than an hour ago. Fusco and I were on the scene only a few minutes after the first responder."

He lowered his eyes to avoid her gaze and ran his hand through his hair and squeezed once at the back of his neck.

When he glanced at her again she thought she saw his eyes blaze before he blinked them shut. They were blue rather than the softer gray she was accustomed to and the change startled her as did his next words.

"Our sources gave us information indicating Amie would be in danger. But I got here too late to save her."

"What do you mean, sources? What sources?"

"You know I can't tell you that, Carter."

"Even if it means letting her killers go free?"

"You're a good detective, Carter. You can find them without me."

She took a deep breath. Anger made her lips tremble and she struggled to control the explosion and keep her voice low.

"It's fine for you two to play these games with me. Shut me out if you want to. It's O.K."

She closed the distance between them until her chest touched his.

"But not now. Not when this boy's life is at stake. Not when his sister is lying mangled out there."

His words were short and brittle.

"Not here, Carter. We are not doing this now."

He pushed to evade her, his shoulder jamming against hers until she was forced to step aside or fall.

He lowered his head almost as if to butt her. He was so close she could hear the crackle of a third voice in the charged air between them: _"…can't tell her…She isn't…"_

The kitchen's swinging door closed on his shadow and he was gone.

xxxxxxxxx

The grim day ended for Carter at an early hour.

She stowed Abou Diallo in the Eighth Precinct's lock-up after preliminary questioning uncovered little beyond what she had already learned from John.

The boy had arrived in the U.S. to visit his older sister four months ago and stayed with her in the apartment where she was killed. He was deathly afraid of his neighbors across the hall, but couldn't or wouldn't say what drove his fear.

The landlord proved to be just as miserly with information as Fusco had discovered in the first interview.

He didn't know anything useful about the three men who rented the rooms opposite Amie Diallo's apartment, only that they were also West Africans, quiet like she was, had no known employment but paid their rent on time every month.

He didn't know where these mysterious tenants were now, only that they had last been seen in the building the day before Amie's death.

After she brought Chinese take-out for Abou and explained the meaning of protective custody to him for the third time, Carter promised to see him the next day and headed for home before her shift ended.

Still smarting from the brief confrontation with John and blue from the spectacle of yet another young life wasted, she took a shower to ease the roar of her persistent headache.

Skipping dinner and her favorite home remodeling show, she was under the covers by nine.

And awake again at eleven.

"Carter, you need to get back down here pronto." No preamble, just desperation.

Sosa the night desk clerk was in a panic, his frayed nerves screaming down the precinct phone line directly into her muzzy brain.

"Your jungle boy is howling like a banshee in back and can't none of us shut him up."

"Well, what am I supposed to do about it, Sosa?"

"How in hell do I know? Kid keeps screeching, 'Cart-AIRE! Cart-AIRE!' Like he's your long-lost cousin or somethin'."

"Yeah, yeah, alright. I get the picture."

She felt exasperation more than anything else at this turn of events.

"An hour of pure hell, Carter! I'm telling ya. Pure hell!" Sosa's voice rose with every sentence.

"So finally, Sarge told me to get aholt of you and tell you to get back down here. Only what he said exactly was, quote: 'Get Carter's ass back here to clean up her mess before I write her the fuck up.' Unquote."

The night was ruined and probably her week of solitude as well.

"Jeez, Sosa! Don't crap your pants, ya big baby. I'll be there in thirty."

xxxxxxxxx

Retrieving Abou from lock-up was the easy part, settling him into her apartment that first night was tougher.

Joss put him in Taylor's empty room, but the sniffling and moaning quickly became intolerable even with both bedroom doors shut. Her mother's heart couldn't bear the suffering of a boy who so forcefully reminded her of her own son's vulnerability and innocence.

So Abou Diallo, Peuhl immigrant, bereaved brother, and lost child ended up sleeping on the carpet at the foot of her bed, curling his long frame into a comma around the blanket and pillow he dragged down the hall from Taylor's room.

The first time she got up to go to the bathroom, she stumbled over Abou's inert body as she rounded the bed.

Though she thought she had kicked him squarely, he didn't wake, only squeezing the pillow tighter between his oversized hands.

The second time she awoke, she remembered to roll to John's side of the bed, the one closer to the bathroom, thus avoiding her troubled guest.

In the morning, Abou was up before she was. He had two mugs of thick café au lait and a stack of butter-logged toast ready when she entered the kitchen.

Before she could object, he dropped four cubes of sugar into her cup. He smiled serenely at her and she couldn't help but smile back.

She gave him a pair of Taylor's jeans to wear—the frayed hems hitting two inches above his ankles—and one of John's white t-shirts.

Dressed that way, Abou looked like a normal boy, not one who had just lost his only relative in America.


	2. Chapter 2

The day after Aminata Diallo's murder resembled the one before.

Her brother and Carter settled into a routine of sorts: Abou spent the whole shift behind bars at the station again, squatting silently against the wall at the back of the eight-by-twelve cube, watching the motley array of cops and citizens parade through the squad room.

His long legs doubled inside the circle of his arms, Abou's face remained as blank as a washed chalk board. He seemed the perfect witness: impassive, non-judgmental, clear-eyed and clinical.

Carter brought him Szechuan-style beef and broccoli plus a double order of white rice for lunch and the same again for dinner. Fusco gave him two bagels and a chocolate-covered doughnut, but Abou only ate the gooey dessert.

Then she took him home with her as darkness fell.

When they first walked through the door, she thought John had broken into her apartment again, the re-shuffled pillows and overturned candles suggesting he had made a clumsier than usual tour of her space.

Or perhaps he had brought the dog as a go-between again.

But when she saw Taylor's upended mattress and the spider web fracture in his laptop screen she knew she was gravely mistaken. Books, clothing, jewelry, cleaning products and towels were strewn from the living room in a crooked line to her bed.

The collection of antique cologne bottles on her dresser was smashed and every bar of soap in her bathroom had been unwrapped and thrown into the toilet bowl.

She was furious rather than scared; they were messing with her home, her things, her life.

Her shriek of frustration brought Abou galloping to the bathroom, where he leaned against the door frame whimpering.

"What is this all for, Abou?"

She tried to keep the accusing tone out of her voice, but seeing him shrink under her glare she knew it was there.

"Who are these people? What do they want from you?"

He remained mute, staring at her with popping eyes, which only made her anger throb painfully in her chest.

To avoid saying anything hurtful, she swept from the room in search of a whisk and dustpan to deal with the shards of sweet-smelling glass on the dresser top.

xxxxxxxxx

She had fished three bars of soap from the toilet when her cell phone buzzed.

"Detective, are you all right?" Finch sounded distant, tinny, and brusque.

"Oh, sure, peachy. And you?"

He adjusted his voice to bring in warmer tones. "We just wanted to make sure everything was alright. Your shouts a moment ago sounded ominous."

"Eavesdropping again? You know, Harold, all your dramatics? They don't impress me anymore. I mean, why would I sound ominous?"

She exhaled a dry huff which didn't come off as casual as she had hoped.

"Someone broke in, ransacked my place, smashed up my stuff, destroyed Taylor's computer."

"Who did?" Now he sounded tense again.

"I have no idea, Harold. I figured you were calling to tell me all about it. You gotta have some fancy gadget which can determine the identity of punk break-in artists, don't you?"

"Did they take anything, Detective? Or leave a message?"

Before she could answer, she heard the muffled fragments of Finch's caution to John: _"...at home…she's not…No need to…"_

She echoed Finch's instruction. "Tell John he doesn't need to come over here to inspect in person."

"I'm afraid he has already left for your location. I expect you can reassure him yourself in about half an hour."

xxxxxxxxx

Since she was trying to downplay the incident, Joss made sure to clean up most of the mess by the time John arrived at her door.

She and Abou wrestled the mattress back into place on Taylor's bed and she refolded all of the towels and clothing into neat piles.

But then a visceral disgust took over.

She decided she wanted to throw out all the tainted things so she roved from room to room gathering every item touched by the intruders into big black trash bags.

She was bow-tying the fourth sack when John burst through the apartment door.

The dark set of his eyebrows and the pinched cast of his mouth told her that he was braced for a fight, either with the invaders or with her.

"I didn't do it, Boss. We're all friendly Indians here, don't shoot!" She wanted to deflate the tension with a joke so she held up her hands in mock surrender.

But John was not appeased or amused. Wordlessly, he inspected every corner, prowling from one end of the apartment to the other with Abou in close pursuit, before returning to the living room where she waited.

She assumed his scowl was directed at her and the faint clucking sounds were expressions of disgust at how thoroughly she had removed all evidence of the break-in.

When he finally spoke, his voice bristled with anxiety.

"You and Abou need to move out tonight. You can't stay here."

"That's not happening, John. So you need to get another plan or get on outta here."

He took a breath to argue, but she cut him off.

"Why should I leave my own home, just because some two-bit thugs looking for easy cash broke in?"

"Did they take anything, Carter?"

"No."

"Not the TV? Not even your grandmother's jewelry?"

"No."

"Then use your head. They weren't hopped up kids looking to feed a drug habit, were they?"

Conciliatory at last, she sat down hard on the sofa and gestured at the wing chair opposite.

But John took her hand, led her to the master bedroom, and closed the door.

"Abou doesn't need to hear this right now."

The concern in his gray eyes frightened her.

"What do you know, John? What are you keeping from me?"

She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed while he paced from the bathroom door to the closet.

"We don't have the complete picture yet. Just the outline. But we know that the people who killed Amie want to eliminate Abou as well. She must have known something, or suspected something, or overheard something that implicated these people.

"So they killed her to shut her up. Now they want to do the same to Abou. "

He paused, his gaze a bolt of such ferocity that she swallowed hard twice.

"And you're standing in the way, Joss. They will kill you too, if they have to. I can't let that happen."

She couldn't argue anymore; his mysterious information and rock-solid certainty trumped her objections.

She didn't want to die, she didn't want Abou to die, she trusted John to protect them.

But then her cop instincts kicked in, she refused to take this affront passively. The good police in her wanted an alternative plan to simply fleeing the apartment with her tail between her legs.

This break-in was in plain daylight, she contended, rushing on before John could object. Therefore it was only a warning, meant to announce an intimidating presence.

The apartment was being watched, she was sure of it. If the three of them stayed in place, they might be able to lure the attackers back for a second attempt.

Abou would be the bait, she and John the trap.

She wasn't budging. Her plan made sense, at least a little. So they agreed that he would spend the night, a sentinel at the door guarding against another intrusion.

The sleeping arrangements were quickly settled: John on the sofa in the front room, Abou in his place at the foot of Joss's bed.

While she prepared to retire, the boy talked happily with the man for an hour in the living room. Both of them sat on the floor, backs leaning against the sofa's apron, legs sprawled out before them.

She couldn't see their heads from the hallway, but she assumed their shoulders were touching as they chatted away at a furious pace.

After she brushed her teeth, she removed her revolver from its locked drawer and positioned it in the bedside table. Rather than her usual tank top and shorts, she chose a billowing flannel gown which would let her turn freely in a fight.

As she moved around her bed, she caught through the open door snatches of the musical mix of the four languages John and Abou knew in common, a bright stew of laughter seasoned by somber phrases and a scattering of sobs.

Turning off the lamp in her bedroom was apparently the signal that their conversation could end, because shortly before she drifted off to sleep, she heard Abou crawl to his place on the floor below her bed.

She slept fitfully, but each time she awakened, she was comforted again by the soft wet snuffling sounds of the witness she was determined to protect.

xxxxxxxxx

She wasn't really surprised when John slipped into bed behind her, somewhere deep in the night.

He had shed his jeans and t-shirt before sliding under the heavy quilt. The hand on her hip felt as hard and familiar as his body when he drew her toward him.

No kiss, no embrace, no request. He was impatient and aroused, as turned on as she was after ten days separation.

Settling between her thighs, he pulledthe bedcover over their heads, trapping the rough scent of sex in a heated cloud around them.

"John, I don't know…"

"I do."

He pressed into her with a sudden thrust, answering her qualm with this silent exclamation of his own.

Immediately they vaulted from disorganized gallop to full-out stampede, careening for the cliff together. No gamboling play or leisurely teasing reined in their head-long charge toward climax.

Her flannel nightgown bunched between their torsos, chafing them, exciting them. With the cloth covering her breasts he could grapple in a wild manner, twisting and plucking at the rigid nipples until a shocked groan escaped her mouth.

At that, he clapped a hand over her quivering lips. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, teeth sharp as spurs against the tender skin there.

With his tongue whipping her throat, she felt rather than heard his single word incantation: _Joss, Joss, Joss. _

One raw syllable for every thrust, on and on he drove, until she arched and convulsed under him. He bucked and then stilled inside her as they tumbled silently into the burning void together.


	3. Chapter 3

While she showered the next morning, she thought she heard the front door close.

In naïve expectation, Abou had set three places at the table for breakfast, but John was gone by the time she entered the kitchen.

She wanted to get to the station house quickly, so the toast was finished in the car and Abou was still sipping his café au lait from a travel mug when she pulled into the parking lot behind the precinct.

With her protégé safely behind bars for another day, Carter briefed Fusco on the break-in and the risky trap they had set to catch the killers.

The partners decided to split their efforts to intensify the investigation of Aminata Diallo's murder. Fusco would go alone to the medical examiner's depressing cavern to get the official autopsy report.

Carter wanted to pay a return visit to the beauty parlor where Amie had braided hair for a living.

They agreed to meet at lunch to share information and decide on a new course of action.

After Fusco's exit, but before she could escape from her desk, Carter got another call from the anxious Finch.

She soon realized John had not told him about their hurriedly conceived night ambush.

So, in what she hoped were soothing tones, she described the plan. The explanation took longer than it should have because Finch interrupted frequently to express his disapproval.

"I know you're surprised, Harold. What can I say? I thought you knew what we were doing."

"No. I did not." An icy shiver crawled up her spine, as she was sure he had intended.

"But no harm, no foul, right?" She forced brightness into her voice.

"Everything was quiet on the home front last night, Harold. No break-ins, no problems."

Finch wasn't finished with her, however.

"Well, while you were playing cops-and-robbers, Detective, I spent the night widening our investigation. I searched a variety of data bases to locate additional information on the murder victim and those we believe may have wanted her dead."

He sounded quite satisfied with himself, she thought.

"So what did you learn, Harold? Tell me what you know."

"I can't give you details which would reveal the sources of my information. But I can share this much. I urge you to find out the meaning of two terms:

"First, Boubacar Bah."

He spelled out the proper name and waited as she tried to get the pronunciation right.

"Boubacar Bah arrived at Kennedy three weeks ago on a direct flight from Paris."

"So you broke into TSA data bases." She didn't ask for confirmation and he didn't offer any.

"Here's the second term: 'Blood-on-the-Sand Brigade.' It's the name of an armed militia based in the Sahel region of West Africa."

"What's it supposed to be up to, Harold?"

"My sources tell me the Brigade is an agent of a virulent new movement called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb."

He paused. As the meaning of his words sank in, she knew her breathing had slowed, but she kept silent to hear him out.

"You remember the recent seizure of that oil refinery deep in the desert reaches of southern Algeria?

"The group claiming responsibility for that violent assault called itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Thirty-seven petroleum workers from six countries were killed in that raid, including four Americans."

Carter tried to relax her vocal cords, but she could hear the tension vibrating through her voice in a higher note than usual.

"Don't tell me you hacked into Homeland Security's classified files, Harold?"

She wanted him to hear the verbal equivalent of an eye roll even through the phone.

"I didn't say that, Detective, you did. Do you want me to go on or don't you?"

"Yes."

He continued with a wounded tone that she tried to ignore.

"Just last week a branch of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb executed four foreigners in northern Nigeria. You may have read about this atrocity in the Times."

She hissed out a confirmation that this story was familiar to her.

"The FBI also had some exceedingly interesting notes on the Blood-on-the-Sand Brigade."

"So what do they know?"

She felt like she was ripping the information out of him, shred by goddamned shred.

"The Bureau is working with counterpart agencies on three continents to track the activities of various off-shoots of Al Qaeda that have sprouted up on our shores far from their roots on the edge of the Sahara. The core members of the Brigade are Touareg nomads from northern Mali."

He stopped abruptly, as if he feared to tell more than the bare bones of the story.

She had to prompt him again to continue.

"So you think that this is Al Qaeda operating in New York City? You hacked into Homeland Security files and now you think Amie Diallo's neighbors were members of an Al Qaeda cell?"

"Not sure, Detective. But it's a working theory that has strong explanatory powers."

When Carter said nothing in response, Finch's next sentences sounded like an exasperated math teacher lecturing a remedial class.

"Look Detective, I'm helping you develop new leads. If you want to question my sources or complain about the ethics or argue with the conclusions, go right ahead.

"But I think you're wasting time. And endangering the life of your witness.

"Go find out whatever you can about the Blood-on-the-Sand Brigade. And find out who is Boubacar Bah."

He hung up before she could ask another question.

xxxxxxxxx

Fusco and Carter arrived at their designated lunch spot, the secluded Italian restaurant Verona, within two minutes of each other.

The owner, Rosaline, seated them at the green-and-white cloaked table they always claimed. But she was visibly disappointed when they turned their wineglasses upside down on the cloth. Ice water was their choice for this strictly working lunch.

After ordering their usual - seafood Alfredo for her and Rigatoni alla Vodka for him - the partners quickly began unpacking the information they had collected in their morning's work.

Carter sped through an account of her second interview with the beauticians and clients of Nu-Wave Locateria, the Bronx hair salon where Amie Diallo had worked.

Amie was a dedicated employee, even-tempered and reliable, they said.

Her hand was gentle and no tender head ever suffered under her care. Customers liked the imagination she applied to the braided designs she created for them.

During her three years at Nu-Wave Locateria, Amie had built up a loyal client list. But despite being in such high demand, the other stylists seemed not to resent her success.

"Good home training," was how one co-worker from Ghana summed up Amie's blend of innate politeness and modesty.

Another one, a Senegalese, remembered Amie's short life in numerical terms: "She was diligent for three years; happy for three months, terrified for three weeks."

No one at Nu-Wave admitted to any knowledge of either Boubacar Bah or the Blood-on-the-Sand Brigade.

Fusco remained silent during Carter's recital of these brief and poignant facts. He waited until the second round of coffee was steaming in front of them before beginning his summary of the M.E.'s findings.

"Ghoulie Gleason was in rare form this morning. That triple poisoning case that dropped over the weekend got him in a real good mood. He had such a chubby for those toxicology reports I couldn't hardly get him to focus on Amie at all."

Carter grimaced at the well-known relish of the medical examiner for the more ghastly aspects of his craft.

"So, what did he have?"

"Well, here's the headline: You know that knife gash to the neck? That didn't kill her. Gleason said she was already dead when the cutting started."

"What the hell?"

"Yeah, I said pretty much the same thing. Turns out she was strangled to death, Carter."

"How? By who?" She was sputtering as she digested this news.

"No clue. But Gleason says from the way the thumb and finger marks were positioned on her throat, the murderer was left-handed. Can you beat that? The bastard only used one hand to choke her to death."

Fusco shook his large head; Carter thought the terrible scene must be playing out in his imagination just as it was in hers.

"And he musta been standing right in front of her. So Ghoulie figures she musta knew him to let him get so close on her like that."

Carter sighed. She wanted to cry just a little, for Amie, for Abou, for this big unholy mess.

Instead, she took a long draught from her cup and let the coffee's bitter heat singe her tongue.

"Gleason get anything more from the autopsy?"

"Yeah, he did. Carter, put your cup down."

She did.

"Amie was pregnant. About three or four months gone, he says."

"Jesus Christ, Fusco!"

"Tell me about it. What a fucked up mess."

There wasn't much more to say. The subdued partners hurriedly wrapped up their meal and called for the check. Fusco let Carter pick up the tab since it was her turn.

As they walked back to the precinct, a sorrowful silence enveloped them.

Carter and Fusco played jaded cops most of the time, their jobs required it. But once in a long while they became just shocked parents and grieving citizens.

When they reached the steps leading up to the glass door entrance, Fusco paused, placing his hand gently on Carter's forearm.

"You gonna tell him about how his sister died?"

She shook her head and clutched at the pink-and-tan plaid scarf at her throat.

"No, I can't do that, Lionel. What good would it serve anyway? Not about the pregnancy either. Done and gone now. No point in getting him twisted up all over again for nothing."

Fusco nodded and lowered his eyes to stare at the cracked pavement under their feet.

"Yeah, you're right. Ya know, I was thinking about what you said that lady in the beauty parlor told you: Amie was three years hard working, three months happy, and three weeks terrified."

He rushed on to share his insight.

"I don't know about the first and the last, but that three months happy has to be because she knew she was pregnant."

Carter echoed his thought.

"She was happy because she was expecting a baby."

xxxxxxxxx

As Joss and Abou unloaded two paper bags of groceries on their third night together, John burst into the apartment.

He was buoyant, striding into her little kitchen with chest and elbows out, scorching the atmosphere with his energy and his focused excitement.

"Honey, I'm home!"

His broad Ricky Riccardo accent made her laugh and Abou caught the electric air and laughed too.

As the cheerful sound bubbled around the room, she wondered, was this yet another chapter in the messy saga of their unsettled life together?

Could Abou, their accidental guest, be both a witness and a catalyst here, creating by his mere presence a new dynamic in their relationship? This was a change for sure, but she hesitated to name it out loud for fear the mood would evaporate.

John had a bag full of produce too: firm tomatoes, onions, chili peppers, carrots, scallions, green peas and a slab of fresh fish wrapped in white paper and tied up in string.

"I bet you don't have any tomato paste either. So I brought three cans of that too." Mischievous and sly, he bumped his hip against hers in playful parody of conjugal bliss.

He was mocking her she knew. But he looked so handsome and carefree that she took it in good humor and made room for his purchases on the short counter top between the oven and the refrigerator.

Abou recognized the ingredients for Jollof Rice immediately. Chirping excitedly, he began pulling from the drawers all the knives he could find in preparation for the cooking session.

With much banging and clanging, the two chefs unearthed a huge pot suitable for their purpose and decided that the remains in the dented box of white rice were enough to feed the three of them, barely.

Joss quickly realized she was superfluous in her own kitchen and backed out of the tiny space as the two left-handed blade masters sliced through the mound of vegetables: it was both a thing of exquisite beauty and a scary proposition to watch them in action.

But stretching out on the sofa had its attractions too, so she left them to their cooking and took up a two-month old issue of _Better Homes and Gardens_ in the living room.

The day's disturbing investigation, with its sad picture of an innocent life gone horribly wrong, receded from her mind a little as she lay in the pool of lamplight washing over her shoulders.

She wanted a beer to welcome the evening, but she knew that Abou didn't drink alcohol and John seemed inclined to respect that practice for the night as well.

So she contented herself with the unusual chance for quiet reflection and spent the hour just listening to the happy sounds of John and Abou at work.

xxxxxxxxx

With the meal finally assembled and grandly displayed in steaming red heaps of rice, crisp fish and jewel-like vegetables on three plates, the men seated Joss in the place of honor at the head of the table.

Abou sat to her right, John to her left.

"Will you be pissed if we don't speak in English during dinner?"

The twinkling eyes and flash of teeth was unnecessary; she would have agreed anyway, but it was exhilarating to see John in such an expansive mood and so she made a show of giving in to his request.

"I guess it's alright," she drawled with a grin. "As long as you don't speak about me in some language I can't understand."

They agreed to her rule and the conversation swirled on around her.

She recognized some words in French and could guess at a few Arabic terms from her time in Iraq.

But in all, the talk was a pleasant buzz that surrounded her but did not involve her. She focused on the fragrant rice and succulent vegetables and it was all so wonderful that she lost track of the passage of time.

She couldn't remember the last time she had spent two nights in a row with John and she cherished the chance to relax with him now, even in these weird circumstances.

She guessed she owed Abou a huge debt of gratitude for being the unwitting cause of this rare opportunity.

Eventually however, she heard her name inserted into the jumble of foreign sentences.

Cart-AIRE this. Cart-AIRE that. Did Abou even know her first name?

"O.K. now, fellas. You remember what I said. No talking about me in front of my face like that. You better not be calling me out my name."

When John translated, she noted that his cheeks flushed a ruddy color like that of the Jollof  
Rice on their plates.

"Abou asked me if you were a faithful wife."

Propping chin on hand, she crinkled her eyes and looked squarely at him.

"And what did you tell Abou?"

"I said yes, you were."

She nodded and waited to hear him out.

As if acknowledging the importance of the covert admission, John continued at a faster pace.

"He said that a faithful wife was a man's most treasured possession, a prize beyond measure."

"A possession?"

"Well, that was his term, Joss. Not mine."

"But you agreed?"

"Didn't see any point in arguing with the chef. Not after that great meal, right?"

Then he smiled in such a captivating manner that she laughed to let him off the hook. Her part ended, the men's conversation returned to its indecipherable origins.

When their talk retreated from raucous subjects to take on a mellower tone, Carter decided she wanted to throw out the question she had been holding close to her heart all evening.

She swung her shoulders around and faced Abou on her right.

"Who is Boubacar Bah?"

She wanted to catch him unawares and she did.

His eyes started in his head and she thought the whites sparked with a few threads of crimson. Then he lowered his gaze to study the grain of the wood table between them.

He spoke in English.

"I am Boubacar Bah."

"When did you come to New York?"

"I came four months ago from Mali."

"Why did you tell us your name was Abou Diallo?"

He hesitated. Then he raised his smooth opaque face and looked her straight in the eye.

"Because Boubacar and Abou are the same name. And Diallo is the name of my mother's father. It is what Amie chose to call herself here in New York. So I did too."

She saw from the corner of her eye that John was processing this new information.

The minute blink of recognition at the name Boubacar Bah told her that Finch had given him the same information he had shared that morning with her.

But as John chose not to make anything of it right away, she held her counsel.

xxxxxxxxx

After-dinner cleanup was Joss's specialty and she performed the chore with speed and gusto.

While she washed the plates and scraped the burnt rice from the bottom of the pot, the two men swept her candles and magazines from the coffee table to make room for a board game.

Taylor's battered Parcheesi set — brightly painted wooden markers chipped but still serviceable - seemed to delight them. She was happy to see the ancient game used again after all those years on the upper shelf in the hall closet.

She wanted to speak with her son, to re-connect, even though it had been less than half a week's separation.

So she called him in his Washington motel room and took in a Tweet-length account of the adventures of his class trip to the nation's capital. She could hear the giggles of male and female teenagers in the background as they talked.

Taylor sounded tired, content, and safe. This was all she could ask for, really.

"How was he?"

John stretched out on their bed as she washed up in the bathroom.

They had closed the door on Abou and retreated together, hoping he would accept re-assignment to the living room sofa without protest.

"Taylor was fine. He sounded good, like he was having fun, learning lots, enjoying the time away."

She muffled her sigh with an extra stroke of the tooth brush.

"He misses you, don't worry about that." Mind-reading and consoling again.

"Joss, come here." He held out his arms to her.

She tugged back the heavy quilt and they slowly arranged themselves under its welcoming shelter.

He pulled her close to his chest. They were both naked and warm and full and sleepy.

"I want you to promise me one thing."

He looked so solemn that it frightened her. As he pushed the cover away from their bodies, his eyes, shimmering toward blue, seemed particularly hard and bright.

"I want you to promise me you will burn that god-awful flannel thing you were wearing last night. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps!"

He shivered to demonstrate his disgust.

"You didn't let it get in the way last night, as I recall."

"You recall correctly. But I don't want to have to tackle it ever again, O.K.?"

The faintest smile flickered on his lips. She saw the tip of his tongue, erect and dancing between his teeth.

"Aye, aye, captain." She shifted so that her stomach fit against his and the raw jut of his hip bone probed the softer prominence of her own.

Then his quicksilver mood changed again.

The smile vanished and he pressed his forehead against hers, his hands cupped over her ears.

"I want to make love to you, Joss. Slowly. Carefully. May I?"

She answered him with a kiss, taking his tongue into her mouth. The talking stopped for several sweet moments.

"But I want to hear you say it to me."

He was panting slightly, but focused, insistent. "Say yes to me, Joss."

"Yes."

"Say my name to me."

"John. Yes, John."

In the light of the lamps on either side of the bed, their bodies glowed with the sheen of sweat and desire. He slid his frame completely over hers, blanketing her with his size and his ardor. She felt small, cosseted, enclosed.

When he took her that night, she marveled at the way the friction of his body unhinged her so immediately and utterly.

For an impossible run of minutes she felt as though she were loosed from her body, clinging to the ceiling looking down as they writhed together on the bed.

From that vantage, she could see only his broad pale shoulders bunching under her brown hands, the creases flexing at his trembling flanks, and the rhythmic contraction of his sleek muscles as he thrust into her again and again.

She was deliciously pinned beneath his weight and yet imagined herself flying unfettered above him at the same time.

From where she drifted, the tensing and relaxing, the closing and retreating of their bodies seemed to go on in this exalted dance forever.

She could feel his hand molding around her breast, his lips latching onto their place at her nipple. But all she could see from on high was the urgent bobbing of his dark head as he pulled and pulled and took and took from her.

His suckling sent a shower of darts racing to every nerve ending and pulse point in her body; she wanted to, needed to arch upward, her power meeting his power. And from above she could see her brown knees gripping his hips to drive him on.

Floating, she could see the small of his back flush in slick crimson patches. Excitement rising now, she saw her insistent heels reddening his skin at that tender spot.

From so far away, how could she hear his soft groans urging her onward? Hear the damp gasping that must be her own faint voice? Hear the moist slapping of flesh against flesh where they joined together?

But in that moment she could hear everything, see everywhere. Together they were beautiful.

Where their bodies joined, he slipped his long fingers and caressed her until she cried out. This reversed ecstasy brought her back to herself: returned into her own body at last, she convulsed in a star-sprung flash of heat and light around him.

Then John sighed and kissed her and called her his darling. And then he cried out to his God and cursed and pulsed inside her.

Afterward, they were so far lost in their sleep that they didn't hear Abou, or Boubacar as he was, creep in to take his usual place on the floor at the foot of their bed.

xxxxxxxxx

Sometime in the dead of night, Joss awoke with a start. She felt cold and reached to pull the covers up around her.

John was standing beside the bed, naked and poised on one foot, struggling to get into his jeans.

He raised an index finger to his lips, pointed to the door, and then gestured at her to get out of bed too. He pulled the zipper up, but strode toward the door without fastening the button at the waistband.

It was only when she rose from the bed to search for her t-shirt and shorts that she saw Abou's pillow and blanket crumpled together on the floor.

He had been in the room sleeping as usual, but was nowhere to be seen now.

By the time she was clothed and standing in the open doorway, she could hear the muffled noises of a struggle in the front rooms.

She slid along the hallway, her steps balanced on the edges of her feet to give her leverage. She gripped her service revolver in one hand as the other pressed against the wall to steady her passage down the dark corridor.

When she peered around the corner to scan the expanse of the living room, she was transfixed by the moon-dappled tableau that confronted her.

In grim silence, John wrestled with two shadowy figures near the front door.

The men were dressed in loose shirts of palest blue that read white in the scattered light. She could see the folds of their garments swirling around them as they lunged and darted in the desperate fight.

Their skin was the color of roasted almonds, though the moon threw ashen shadows across their features.

Framed in the door of the kitchen, Abou loomed over a third man, dressed like the others in a blue tunic which exposed his tawny arms, bare throat, and wispy black beard.

Joss noted that Abou was wearing her son's gray sweatpants. Ludicrously, given the dire circumstances, she wondered if his exposed ankles and bare feet felt cold.

Suddenly, John flung his forearm into the face of one assailant, connecting with the nose in a crunching sound that reverberated across the room. To Joss's surprise, the man didn't cry out, but he did stumble backwards, leaving the space in front of John to a second attacker.

The other man was more compact than his comrade and ducked John's flailing fist, aiming his head toward John's torso. John crouched and using the full force of his thighs brought his clenched hands in an upward arc that lifted the man's chin backwards.

Joss could see the startled anguish on the short man's face as his entire body sprang into the air with the force of John's blow. The man landed hard on his back, his four limbs writhing above his trunk at awkward angles.

When the first attacker returned to the fray, Joss crept swiftly behind him. She could see a dagger glinting in his fist as he raised it above his head.

John caught her eye for an instant and they moved in unison: he swung high to block the knife thrust; she aimed the blade of her foot at the man's left knee, buckling it inward as she struck. He crumpled over his shattered knee. With the assailant on the floor and howling in pain, Joss reversed her gun and delivered a decisive blow to his left temple.

Silent again, blood from the man's head wound dripped until it mingled with the torrent gushing from his damaged nose.

Simultaneously, Joss and John pivoted to where Abou still fought the third attacker.

She had been mistaken about the man's height: now he appeared several inches taller than Abou, his bearded face close to the boy's stony profile.

Then she saw the terrible reason for the change.

Abou held the man suspended four inches off the ground, his left hand fastened at the other's throat like a vise around a flimsy balsawood pole.

As she watched, Abou tightened his grip, the knuckle tendons bulging as his fingers dug for their grim victory.

She heard the windpipe collapse with a sickening crack.

The man's legs flailed twice, then his feet twitched, then nothing.

With a peculiar care, Abou laid the dead man on the bare floor at the edge of the carpet and stood in the kitchen doorway, blinking.

"Get your cuffs, Joss. Now." John's bark stopped her trembling and she ran to the bedroom.

When she returned the lights were on and the wreckage was on full display.

John had dragged the two living intruders toward the radiator under the window across from the front door. He used one set of handcuffs to fasten the captives to the pipes.

Then he took Abou by the hand, his fist enclosed in the boy's larger one as it had been on that first day in Amie's kitchen.

John led Abou to the sofa, and with gentle pressure on his shoulders, pushed him to sit on the middle cushion.

Joss hesitated, but at a nod from John she clapped the second set of handcuffs on Abou's thin wrists.

Sagging under the burden of sudden revelation, she sat heavily in the high backed wing chair facing the couch. John stood behind her vibrating with coiled energy.

His hands gripped the back of the chair, framing her head and sending waves of barely contained anger shooting through the chair's upholstery.

She heard his shallow panting and imagined his fierce gaze was trained on the young murderer.

John was angry at Abou, she imagined, but also at her. And above all, he was furious with himself. None of this was preventable, but she knew he would think otherwise.

It seemed that the three of them might remain riveted in place for eternity, until John began speaking, using English for this final conversation.

"We are going to have to lock you up, you know."

Abou nodded, but kept his eyes toward the floor in what Joss took for submission and respect.

She seized the lead then, her questions jumping out at him in staccato rhythm.

"Who is Boubacar Bah?"

"I am Boubacar Bah."

"Who is Aminata Diallo?"

"Amie is my sister. The second wife of my older brother, Al Hajji Hassan Bah."

The boy shifted in the soft cushion, still leaning forward, his manacled hands clutched between his knees. She wondered if she could still call him Abou? What could she think about him? Or really know about him?

"Why did you come here?"

"My brother paid for Amie's ticket to America three years ago. He paid for her school fees. And when he died eight months ago, I became her husband. I saved money to buy a ticket to join her in America. I arrived here three weeks ago."

"Do you know that Amie was pregnant?"

"Yes. With the child of another man."

He inclined his head toward the dead intruder.

"That man. Touareg filth."

His voice was firmer now, confident in its clipped scorn.

"She brought a shame on our family. On my brother. On me."

"So you killed her?"

"Yes. It was required."

The rest of the story was simple.

Abou knew that the men next door to Amie were members of the Blood-on-the-Sand Brigade; he had met their comrades in Mali and knew of their activities in the U.S.

Amie knew who they were too. But she didn't care about the clear danger Al Qaeda posed to her, to everyone.

When he arrived in New York three weeks ago, he discovered that Amie was already involved in an adulterous affair with her neighbor, already pregnant.

Abou resolved to kill her then and waited until the right day to strike.

"Why did you cut her?" John spit out the question, interrupting the narrative.

"I wanted Al Qaeda to be blamed. They were the cause. They were to blame."

xxxxxxxxx

By the time Joss called the police, dawn's pink streaks had penetrated the solemn apartment. The sunlight felt giddy and fresh; the new morning promised that spring was not far off.

She had thrown on a sapphire blue silk shirt just back from the cleaners and tucked it into black jeans; her tough low boots made her feel like she was on the job once more and the navy knit vest warded off the chill she felt as she reentered the living room.

John, dressed now in his black suit, stood ramrod straight near the kitchen's back door, his eyes locked on the scene in the adjacent room. With his white shirt uncharacteristically buttoned to the throat, Joss thought he looked like a priest called to the scene of a parish tragedy.

When she drew near to him she caught fragments of his conversation with Finch.

"…two different threats, Harold... No way you could've pick up the second…she's doing O.K….won't ask for it…"

She interrupted their exchange to urge John to leave the apartment, knowing the cops were near. He refused, still eyeing Abou who sat motionless and shackled on the sofa.

The two injured men whimpered near the radiator, rattling their cuffs once before subsiding into dejected silence.

The dead man's thin body was draped with his sky blue tunic, the dusty shroud drawn up to cover his face.

Fusco hustled first into the apartment, holstering his gun when he saw Joss standing unharmed beside the sofa.

She could hear the team of crime scene technicians squabbling cheerfully with each other as they plodded up the stairs behind him.

Before they entered, she motioned to Fusco, directing his gaze toward the kitchen.

He saw John, cloaked in shadows there, and raised his chin in recognition. John nodded in reply.

The guard was changed.

Joss stepped quickly past the refrigerator, blocking John's exit through the back door.

She wanted this moment of farewell before the commotion and formalities of the day swamped everything.

Raising a hand, she grazed her fingers once over his jaw, cuticles catching on the white-flecked stubble there.

John leaned his head into her touch and when he shut his eyes, she hoped the gesture was a promise to return.

Would it be nine days wait this time? Or four? Or only until tomorrow?

She closed her eyes too, swaying slightly. His scent, the sweat blending with their sex in that idiosyncratic tang on his skin, vanquished her again.

When she opened her eyes, he was gone.


End file.
